car listed on Turo
Enthusiast

I Listed My Car on Turo: My First Experience

If you haven’t heard of the Turo app, it’s most easily described as an Airbnb but for cars.

Let’s say you’re going away on business for a few days and you’re going to need a car to take you around. Or maybe you’re going on vacation and you want to be able to have a car during your vacation to be able to drive to all of the different spots you want to check out. Or, maybe you’ve just always wanted to take a spin in a Maserati for a day or two.

Maybe you’re a car owner and you want to rent out your car to make some extra cash. With Turo, you can do any of these things.

A few swipes and…voila!

I thought to myself, “Maybe I can pay for half (or all) of my car payment every month if I list it on a rental app.” Then, I took to the internet and did some research, looking around for a company that has great ratings and a user-friendly platform.

Finally, I found Turo. I just went into the app store on my iphone and downloaded it. From there, I found it easy to use. The app asked me a few identification questions as well as my location, and if I was looking to list my car or if I wanted to search for a car to rent out. I played with both options just to get a feel of the app, but ultimately I went on to list my car.

The application requires you to share information about your vehicle in order to list it; things like the make and model, the color, the mileage, and so on. It was pretty typical stuff.

After I filled in all the information, I went outside and took a bunch of pictures of the car. I did my best to make it look good, but I’m no photographer (some of the listed cars look SO good because it’s obvious that the listers hired photographers to get professional photos taken). For now, I was okay with my quick snapshots.

The app will ask you what price you want to list your car for, if you want to include any discounts with the price, the miles per day you’re comfortable giving the driver, and other similar information. 

The pros of the Turo process

You get to choose every single aspect during this process. There are very little requirements, so you’re basically free to do whatever you please.

The app even has an automatic pricing tool, which allows you to see what Turo thinks which price is most likely to get someone to book your car. If you choose this option, the price changes over certain weekends, holidays, etc. If you don’t want to choose automatic pricing, you can price the car however you’d like. I chose to price it a bit above what Turo recommended just to see what would happen.

And then I got my first bite

Low and behold, a few days after Turo verified all of my information as well as my car’s information, someone requested to book my car for a five day period. I drive a 2019 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited X, and I had it listed at $75/day. The wheels are upgraded, the windows are tinted, and the interior comes with just about anything you might want in a car. In other words, it’s kind of my baby, so I thought it was worth the price. However, even when I had put the listing up, I didn’t think I would find someone who wanted to drive it so fast! But, when I saw that someone wanted to spend $350 to drive it for five days… I just about jumped out of my seat in excitement.

Except, why was I surprised? This is the entire reason I listed my car in the first place. 

After fees and costs, Turo takes 35% of my profit. So, because the total for five days was $350, Turo takes about $100. In all, I get around $250 for the five day rental period.

Cash over nerves

A few days later, a nice man showed up to my home to pick up the vehicle. I made sure the gas tank was full and the car was clean, and I handed him my keys. As he drove off, I was definitely nervous. 

I wondered what would happen if he got in an accident.

But, I knew that I had done my research. Turo covers up to $1 million in theft, damage, and liability, so there wasn’t much to worry about. After three days passed, I texted the man who was driving my car to check in. He told me everything was going just fine and that he loved the car, and that he would contact me before he was ready to drop it back off.

On his final day, the drop-off process went fairly smoothly, and I had my car back in my possession. I cleaned it again and gave the man a 5-star guest rating. I hoped that he would give me and the Jeep five stars as well. We got that five stars! And, when the whole experience was over, I would give Turo five stars as well. 

Whether you’re sick of classic rental car companies, looking for a cool weekend car to drive, or considering listing your car like I did to make it pay for itself, I recommend Turo. Give it a look, you might just love it like I did.

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Cristofer Montel
Cristofer Montel is a South Florida Native, swearing that Boca Raton is much more than just a retirement destination for Northerners. He went to Florida State University for his Bachelors degree and then on to Nova Southeastern University for law school. In his spare time, he scrolls through pages and pages of car content on Instagram. When he's not drowning in legal work, he writes for a marketing and advertising consultancy

    6 Comments

    1. This seems like an interesting option… assuming one has a car that others would want to drive.

    2. This is cool, one of my neighbors does it. I don’t think I would ever rent out my car, (be too worried) but it seems like a great way to maybe buy something a little out of your price range and let it help pay for itself.

    3. This seems like a great option if you have a secondary vehicle that is underutilized. For example, you work from home and you do not drive your vehicle as much. Maybe this could make sense. This could offset the fixed costs of owning a vehicle. I would not recommend this for someone that could not afford to buy another vehicle. What are you going to do when your only vehicle is crashed by the Turo driver and it takes time to replace the vehicle.

    4. This is real investigative journalism! We haven’t seen this in years.
      Great Article!!

    5. So cool reading from the perspective of someone renting out their car. I do not have a car worthy of listing, but I may consider browsing through Turo the next time I want to rent a car. It would be interesting to compare it to a standard rental and process.

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